I looked at this woman. This teacher who had been entrusted with my daughter's safety. Who had watched a five-year-old child be brutalized and called it housekeeping.
My thumb found my mother's signet ring. The heavy gold band with the Valente crest. I turned it slowly against my finger, feeling the engraved edges press into my skin.
I had already decided.
They just didn't know it yet.
The applause came like a verdict.
Parents clapped in unison, the sound sharp and rhythmic against the courtyard walls, bouncing off stone and iron until it felt less like approval and more like a sentencing.
"That's why you're the teacher. Fair. Direct. No games."
"This is an elite academy. You don't just let anyone through the gates."
"Why does a mistress's daughter need an education? Teach her what you know best. How to spread her legs and trap a man with money. Maybe she'll outdo you. Maybe she'll land someone even richer."
Luna Caruso fed on it. Every word made her taller. She stood in the center of the courtyard like a woman who had rehearsed this moment in the mirror a thousand times, and now, finally, the audience had arrived.